Will's POV
"What are you doing." I heard El's voice from behind.
I was in the shed strapping a sheet of metal around my chest and back with duck tape over the top of my clothes. El was standing in the door way, looking at me with confusion.
"It's just in case Vecna throws something for me, you know?" I told her.
"Smart." She responded. "Do you think there's any left for me?" She asked.
I looked around my surrounding in the shed, scanning for any extra sheets of metal.
"I must've taken the only ones." I responded. "I can take one off for you, if you want." I suggested to her.
El shook her head in response. "I should be fine. You need it more."
"Alrighty. If you think so." I turned to reach for a red jacket that I had put aside for after.
It was a bit large for myself but it was quite thick and zipped up over the metal sheets.
"Where'd you get the jacket from? I've never seen it before." El asked me from the doorway.
"You mean, 'if you would have seen it before, you would've stolen it for yourself'?" I chuckled half expecting for her to do the same even if it was a dumb joke.
"Where?" She asked me once more.
"..It was my father's. I found it in all of Jonathan's stuff. I haven't seen him wear it before but it's clearly been used before. It was the only jacket I could find that would fit." I explained to her.
"Oh." She responded.
There was a moment of silence before I decided to break it by talking once more. "Do you have everything you need?".
"I don't think I'll be needing anything." She replied.
"You sure?"
"I have powers, remember?" She smirked at me.
"Right. What about protection though?" I said even though I obviously remembered that.
"I'll be fine, I promise." She smiled at me.
I only stared at her in return, unsure of the choice she had made but instead decided to just let it go. I was sure she knew what she was doing.
As El stood in the doorway, I began to scourge through all the junk that was within the shed in search of my desired weapon: the shotgun. Once I discovered that I couldn't find it within a short amount of time, I called over El to help search for it. It took a while but we eventually had found it piled under a load of random stuff upon a workshop table.
"Thanks, El." I told her as I slung it over my shoulder.
The two of us didn't hesitate to head off as soon as possible. We wanted to catch Vecna before he could catch us. So, off we headed towards Victor Creel's house.
Mike's POV
I was sitting in the waiting room along with the lot of people that had been at the Byers house.
Lucas was still in the hospital room with Max, talking to her or something. I wasn't quite sure. The seat I was sitting on had been occupied by my butt for 45 minutes now and I was starting to think that by the time Lucas had started to wrap things up, the nurses would decide that Max's visiting time would be over and we'd have to wait extra hours before we could see her again.
I heaved a heavy sigh as I arched over to rest my chin in the palm of my hand, becoming more impatient by the second.
I felt a hand on my back. It was Dustin.
"It's so good to hear that Max is back, right?" He said in his cheerful tone. "She might even be able to help us defeat Vecna!".
"You do realise that the people who run this place probably won't let Max out until she's been confirmed to be in a healthy state." I raised my eyebrow at him.
Dustin proceeded to roll his eyes back at me. "Your always so moody and glum nowadays." He told me in a flat tone. "It's always only when Will's around that you actually seem like your actually enjoying life."
"Mhm, cause I actually enjoy being hunted down by a deadly monster that could use my own trauma to terrorise me into a gruesome death." I responded sarcastically.
"At least you weren't actually tormented, Mike." Dustin muttered as he turned to look the other way.
I gave him a pissed side-glance as I, like him, rotated my body to face the opposite way as well.
Soon enough, Lucas entered entered the waiting room with a smile that reached for his ears. He was excited, who could blame him.
Lucas invited for each of us to visit Max in small groups. I was one of the first few people that got to see Max first.
She was upright sitting in her bed with her back resting against a thick pillow. Her skin was paler than it had been a few months and some limbs were still bandaged. But even with that, she still managed to have a stable gleam on her face as she noticed us enter the room.
Each one of us walked up towards her in excitement and shared a group hug with her that wasn't too tight that it would harm her anymore than she already was. I hadn't found an open area to give Max the proper hug she deserved so I had to pile my hug on top of Dustin and Steve.
No doubt I should've shown her more affection. She definitely deserved it after what had happened but it felt quite awkward to even look at her. After all, I haven't spoken with her for what seems like many years even if it was actually only just a few months.
I rubbed my hand up and down my arm as everybody else began talking excitedly trying to keep her up with everything that had happened whilst she was in her coma.
I hadn't been listening to the conversation but somehow Eleven had been mentioned. I flinched as her name was mentioned aloud knowing what was to be said next.
"Where is she?" Max asked to me in particular.
That's when I noticed that neither Eleven or Will had arrived to the hospital as they had told me just before I had left.
"I'm not sure." I responded. "She and Will said they'd meet me and the others here but they never came." I shrugged whilst also side glancing the others.
"You don't think they've gone after Vecna without us, do you?" Dustin's head was slightly lowered as he spoke.
"You guys have been planning to attack Vecna without me?" Max asked from her bed.
"Not attack; kill" I corrected her. "But we weren't going to do it until we were all prepared." I turned to face Dustin directly. "I'm sure they are just taking their time to get here, they had to walk all the way here anyway. It's not like either of them can drive."
"I wouldn't be so sure" Steve began. "They both seemed pretty eager with their plan. They had it all drawn out and everything."
"Some of us might need to go on a quick search for them." Lucas joined in.
"Hey, can I help kill Vecna after you find them?" Max put in her request.
Everybody that were in the room looked to her, questioning what she had said.
"Max.." Dustin was about to say something before Max cut him off.
"I'm sure I can convince them to let me out!" She put in.
"Even so, what would you even do to help?" I said to her soon after realising how nasty I must've sounded.
"I could distract him or something, I don't know! Just let me help! I need to get revenge on him for putting me in here." Max pleadingly had said.
"What about you eyesight. You said everything looked cloudy?" Lucas asked.
"I'm not completely blind." Max pointed out. "I can still see the obvious."
"More importantly, how will you get around." Steve added.
"Wheelchair. I've had enough skateboard experience to know how to use one."
"They're like completely different transportation devices." Dustin spoke.
"I can still learn!"
"What are you going to do in a wheelchair?" I said to her.
"Whatever you need, just let me help!" Max pleaded.
"Let's just focus on finding the other two first. If they aren't already in the Upside-down, we can find somewhere for you to help." Steve said to finish the conversation.